Tahrir, Here? The Influence of the Arab Uprisings on the Emergence of Occupy

Abstract

The Egyptian uprising played a key role in initiating and shaping the Occupy movement. By applying Benjamin's concept of aura to evidence how Tahrir Square is imagined as an auratic and magical experience, I argue that the tactical and political decisions of Occupy were originally negotiated through the emancipatory possibilities of a new political subjectivity in Egypt. I further examine who is empowered to speak of and for ‘the 99%’ by exploring the role Adbusters, a Canadian anti-consumerism group, played in branding the initial aesthetic and ideological direction of Occupy Wall Street (OWS). By positioning itself as instrumental to OWS's emergence, I posit that Adbusters attempts to police and thus reduce Occupy's realm of the possible, conditioning Rancière's ‘distribution of the sensible’.

Keywords:

• Social movements
• occupy
• aesthetics
• Tahrir Square
• Rancière
• police
• politics
• Benjamin